Letter: Taking its toll

“New research on the human cost of the war in Iraq estimates that roughly half a million men, women and children died between 2003 and 2011 as a direct result of violence or the associated collapse of civil infrastructure.

“In a study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine, researchers concluded that at least 461,000 ‚Äòexcess‚Äô Iraqi deaths occurred in the troubled nation after the U.S.-led invasion that resulted in the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein. Those were defined as fatalities that would not have occurred in the absence of an invasion and occupation.”